My Lords, I too am not convinced by any of these amendments, and I support the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, in that. The amendment undermines the point of the Bill and the adjudicator; there is currently an imbalance between the power of the various parties involved in the food supply chain which the Bill tries to redress. Thus, to tie the hands of the adjudicator in this way is not particularly helpful. After all, if we are trying to minimise spurious and vexatious complaints, is it best to limit the complaints to the supplier who may have been personally affected, or is it best to have their grievance or grievances assessed and filtered by a trade association and others, who might be able to point out what is reasonable and what is not? That, of course, is quite apart from the point about anonymity raised by the noble Lord, Lord Razzall.
I am afraid that I cannot support Amendments 19 and 20. The whole point of the Bill is to defend the little man against the power and possible bullying tactics of the big man. The whole point of the groceries code is that legal redress is too costly to risk, even if one thinks one has a case and does not have to succumb to the threat of delisting or other bullying tactics. I like the word “may” in Clause 10 because it deals with time wasters and those who are trying it on, but I strongly object to “must” in Amendments 19 and 20, which would undermine the flexibility of the adjudicator and thus much of the point of the Bill.